January 5, 2020

Born on this date
Happy Birthday, Laura-Belle Robinson and Nadia!

380 years ago
1640

Born on this date
Paolo Lorenzani. Italian composer. Mr. Lorenzani was a Baroque composer who wrote sacred and secular works. He went to France in 1678, and his motets received the approval of King Louis XIV of France, who appointed him music master to Queen Maria Theresa. However, Mr. Lorenzani's influence was undermined by rival composer Jean-Baptiste Lully, and Mr. Lorenzani returned to Rome in 1695. He died on October 28, 1713 at the age of 73.

280 years ago
1740

Died on this date
Antonio Lotti, 73. Italian composer. Mr. Lotti was a Baroque composer who served as organist and music master at St. Mark's Basilica in Venice. He wrote about 30 operas, as well as other choral and instrumental works, and died on his 73rd birthday.

140 years ago
1880

Born on this date
Nikolai Medtner. Russian-born composer and pianist. A close friend of Sergei Rachmaninov, Mr. Medtner taught at Moscow Conservatory and then fled his homeland in 1921. He and his family lived in several European cities over the year before finally settling in London. Mr. Medtner was best-known for his piano concertos, which are excellent examples of late Romantic music. He died on November 13, 1951 at the age of 71.

125 years ago
1895

Abominations
French Army Captain Alfred Dreyfus was stripped of his rank and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island.

120 years ago
1900

Born on this date
Yves Tanguy. French-born U.S. artist. Mr. Tanguy was a surrealist painter of abstract landscapes and abstract shapes in a career spanning 30 years. He moved to the United States in 1940, and became an American citizen in 1948. Mr. Tanguy died from a stroke on January 15, 1955, 10 days after his 55th birthday.

110 years ago
1910

Born on this date
Jack Lovelock. N.Z. runner and physician. Dr. Lovelock set a British Empire record for the one-mile run in 1932, and set a world record of 4:07.36 in the mile in 1933. He won the gold medal in the mile at the 1934 British Empire Games in London, and won the gold medal in the men's 1,500-metre run at the Summer Olympic Games in Berlin in 1936. Dr. Lovelock was thrown from a horse in 1940, and was thereafter subject to attacks of dizziness. He served in the Royal Army Medical Corps during World War II, and moved to the United States after the war, practicing medicine at Manhattan Hospital in New York City. Dr. Lovelock fell onto subway tracks while waiting for a train on December 28, 1949, apparently after suffering another dizzy spell, and was killed, eight days before his 40th birthday.

Defense
The dreadnought Minas Geraes was commissioned by the Brazilian Navy.

Hockey
Stanley Cup challenge
Game 1 (2-game total goals series)
Galt (OPHL) 3 @ Ottawa (CHA) 12

Marty Walsh scored 6 goals to lead the defending champion Ottawa Hockey Club, formerly of the Eastern Canada Hockey Association and now a founding member of the new professional league known as the Canadian Hockey Association, to victory at The Arena. Bruce Stuart and Hamby Shore each scored twice for Ottawa, with single goals coming from Fred Lake and Bruce Ridpath. Mr. Doherty, Mr. Manson, and J. Mallen scored for Galt, champions of the Ontario Professional Hockey League.

NHA
Cobalt 6 @ Montreal Canadiens 7 (OT)

The Canadiens started their history on a winning note as Didier Pitre scored 5 minutes into overtime against the Silver Kings at Jubilee Arena on the first day of play in the new professional league known as the National Hockey Association. The league had 5 teams: Montreal Canadiens; Montreal Wanderers; Renfrew Creamery Kings; Cobalt Silver Kings; and Haileybury Comets. On January 15 the NHA admitted the Ottawa Senators and Montreal Shamrocks from the rival Canadian Hockey Association, and the season began anew with 7 teams. The results of all games played prior to January 15, including the Canadiens’ win over the Silver Kings, were thrown out.

100 years ago
1920

Baseball
The New York Yankees announced the purchase of outfielder-pitcher Babe Ruth from the Boston Red Sox for $125,000. Mr. Ruth had set a major league single-season record with 29 home runs in 1919, while posting a pitching record of 9-5. The sale had been made on December 26, 1919, but the details hadn't been finalized until early in January 1920.

80 years ago
1940

War
The United Kingdom warned Norway that "illegal" use of Norwegian territorial waters by Germany to ship iron ore would make it necessary for the Royal Navy to enter Norwegian waters. The Swedish government demanded that the U.S.S.R. investigate the shelling of a Swedish steamer in the Gulf of Bothnia.

The China Affairs Board in Tokyo approved the peace proposals of Wang Ching-wei, who was scheduled to head the Japanese-sponsored Chinese government in Nanking.

Politics and government
Oliver Stanley succeeded Leslie Hore-Belisha as Secretary of State for War in the British cabinet of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain.

Defense
Sir Charles Burnett took charge of the Royal Australian Air Force.

Diplomacy
The U.S.A. and Canada agreed to discuss a possible accord on completion of the St. Lawrence Seaway project.

75 years ago
1945

War
U.S. and U.K. forces advanced another 1-3 miles against the northern German flank in Belgium.

Diplomacy
The U.S.S.R. recognized the provisional government of Poland that had been set up under Soviet sponsorship.

Business
Montgomery Ward & Company filed court papers charging that the U.S. Army's seizure of company property was unconstitutional.

Science
The American Section of the Society of Chemical Industry awarded the Perkin Medal for applied chemistry to Dr. Elmer Bolton for his work with synthesis of neoprene, the first general purpose synthetic rubber.

Boxing
Former world welterweight champion Fritzie Zivic (142-44-6) won a controversial majority decision over Billy Arnold (26-1-1) at Madison Square Garden in New York.

70 years ago
1950

On the radio
Springbok Radio, South Africa’s first commercial station, began broadcasting.

Dragnet, starring Jack Webb and Barton Yarborough, on NBC
Tonight’s episode: Big Escape

On television tonight
Escape, on CBS
Tonight’s episode: Rugged Journey, starring Charita Bauer, Charles Eggleston, Lawrence Fletcher, and Richard McMurray

This was the first episode of the televised version of the popular radio program.

War
U.S. President Harry Truman announced that the United States would take no military action to help the Nationalist Chinese government defend Taiwan against Communist attack.

Diplomacy
The British government of Prime Minister Clement Attlee announced plans to recognize the People's Republic of China, withdrawing recognition from the Nationalist government in Taiwan.

Politics and government
11 Liberal ministers quit the coalition cabinet of Greek Prime Minister Alexander Diomedes, charging that Populist leader Constantin Tsaldaris had violated the coalition agreement by conducting political campaigns in the countryside.

Crime
Dr. Carl Binger, a psychiatrist testifying at the New York perjury trial of former U.S. State Department official Alger Hiss, described prosecution witness Whittaker Chambers, a former Time magazine editor and confessed ex-Communist, as a "psychopathic personality," given to "repetitious lying, stealing and deception."

Journalism
Brazilian police seized Communist newspapers in Rio de Janeiro and halted their publication in Sao Paulo for printing stories praising Communist leader Luis Carlos Prestes in his birthday.

Disasters
All 19 people on board--including almost the entire national hockey team (VVS Moscow) of the Soviet Air Force--were killed in the crash of a Lisunov Li-2 transport plane on its fifth approach to landing at Koltsovo Airport in Sverdlovsk.

60 years ago
1960

On television tonight
Alcoa Presents: One Step Beyond, hosted by John Newland, on ABC
Tonight's episode: The Justice Tree, starring Sally Brophy, Charles Herbert, and Frank Overton



50 years ago
1970

Hit parade
#1 single in Australia (Kent Music Report): Suspicious Minds--Elvis Presley (2nd week at #1)

#1 single in Japan (Oricon Singles Chart): Kuroneko no Tango--Osamu Minagawa (9th week at #1)

#1 single in Spain (PROMUSICAE): Sugar, Sugar--The Archies (8th week at #1)

On the radio
The Challenge of Space, on Springbok Radio
Tonight’s episode: The Seven Ages of Man

Died on this date
Max Born, 87. German-born physicist and mathematician. Dr. Born began his career in his native Germany, but was forced to flee to the United Kingdom shortly after the Nazis took power in Germany in 1933. He was awarded a share of the 1954 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his fundamental research in quantum mechanics, especially for his statistical interpretation of the wavefunction." Dr. Born returned to West Germany in 1954, and remained active there until his death, 25 days after his 87th birthday.

Roberto Gerhard i Ottenwaelder, 73. Spanish composer. Mr. Gerhard was a Catalan composer who moved to England after the Fascists won the Spanish Civil War in 1939. He wrote several symphonies, ballets, and operas, and other instrumental and vocal works. Mr. Gerhard died as a the result of a long-standing heart condition.

Space
A four-day conference on lunar science opened in Houston with 800 scientists in attendance. Studies of the moon rocks brought back by the Apollo 11 and 12 astronauts had led to the revision of theories of the moon's origin. Professor Harold C. Urey, a Nobel Prize-winning chemist from the University of California who for decades had argued that the moon had been formed as a dead body and had been dead ever since, now said that he wanted to think about a new model for the formation of the moon. University of Chicago mineralogist Joseph C. Smith proposed that the moon was formed much like the Earth from a molten core of iron and titanium-rich liquid. Dr. Smith described his discovery of an unnamed mineral, a yellowish substance unknown on Earth in any natural form, that had been found in the moon rocks.

Crime
The bodies of Jock Yablonski, his wife, and their 25-year-old daughter were found shot to death in their Clarksville, Pennsylvania home. It was estimated that the murders had taken place on December 31. Mr. Yablonski, 59, had lost a bitterly-fought election on December 9 to Tony Boyle for the presidency of the United Mine Workers of America. The election was widely believed to be corrupt, and on December 18, Mr. Yablonski had asked the United States Department of Labor to investigate. Mr. Yablonski’s two sons, both lawyers, charged that the murders were committed by "professional assassins." An FBI investigation of the crime was ordered after demands from Mr. Yablonski’s lawyer. The UMWA denied any connection with the killings and offered $50,000 for capture and conviction of the killer or killers.

U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy spent nearly two hours testifying under oath about his movements before and after the drowning of Mary Jo Kopechne the previous July, as a long-delayed inquest into Miss Kopechne’s death on Chappaquiddick Island began in Edgartown, Massachusetts. The inquest was closed to the public and press.

War
The South Vietnamese Senate decided that the My Lai massacre in March 1968 was "an isolated act by an American unit and not the policy of the United States armed forces." Despite a committee report that at least 47 people had been killed in the village, the senators did not label the incident a massacre.

Society
As 30 Mississippi schools began to end their dual school systems under orders of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, many white parents shifted their children from the integrated schools in predominantly Negro areas to private, all-white schools.

Weather
The Edmonton Journal reported that the federal Department of Transport’s meteorological branch had opened its first Meteorological Automatic Reporting Station (MARS) at Liard River on the Alaska Highway. Data including hourly changes in cloud, visibility, temperature, dewpoint, windspeed and direction, barometer reading and precipitation was carried by the Canadian National Telecommunications system 134 miles to the main terminal at Watson Lake, Yukon Territory, and then was relayed to Toronto.

Disasters
An earthquake registering Mw 7.1 struck Tonghai County in southern China, killing 10,000-15,000 people, injuring 26,000 others, and eventually spurring the creation of the nation's largest earthquake monitoring system.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police reported that seven people had drowned during a boat outing in the Georgia Strait in British Columbia.

At least 36 perished when a dam broke and flooded Mendoza, Argentina.

40 years ago
1980

Hit parade
#1 single in Italy (Hit Parade Italia): Disco Bambina--Heather Parisi

#1 single in Flanders (Ultratop 50): Een Bakske Vol Met Stro--Urbanus

#1 single in Ireland: Another Brick in the Wall (Part II)--Pink Floyd (4th week at #1)

#1 single in the U.K. (BMRB): Another Brick in the Wall (Part II)--Pink Floyd (4th week at #1)

Netherlands Top 10 (De Nederlandse Top 40)
1 Weekend--Earth and Fire (4th week at #1)
2 Love and Understanding--Mac Kissoon and Family
3 I Have a Dream--ABBA
4 David's Song (Who'll Come with Me)--Kelly Family
5 Thema Uit "De Verlaten Mijn" - Einsamer Hirte--Gheorghe Zamfir met Orkest o.l.v. James Last
6 Another Brick in the Wall (Part II)--Pink Floyd
7 Please Don't Go--KC and the Sunshine Band
8 Gonna Get Along Without You Now--Viola Willis
9 Get Up and Boogie--Freddie James
10 Ooh, Yes I Do--Luv'

Singles entering the chart were Sara by Fleetwood Mac (#22); It Will Come in Time by Billy Preston featuring Syreeta (#35); Off the Wall by Michael Jackson (#36); and Carrie by Cliff Richard (#39).

U.S.A. Top 10 (Billboard)
1 Please Don't Go--KC and the Sunshine Band
2 Escape (The Pina Colada Song)--Rupert Holmes
3 Rock with You--Michael Jackson
4 Send One Your Love--Stevie Wonder
5 Do That to Me One More Time--Captain & Tennille
6 Babe--Styx
7 Still--Commodores
8 Coward of the County--Kenny Rogers
9 Ladies Night--Kool & The Gang
10 We Don't Talk Anymore--Cliff Richard

Singles entering the chart were I'm Alive by Gamma (#81); Flirtin' with Disaster by Molly Hatchet (#83); Make Believe it's Your First Time by Bobby Vinton (#85); Goodnight My Love by Mike Pinera (#86); and Bad Times by Tavares (#93).

#1 single in the U.S.A. (Cash Box): Escape (The Pina Colada Song)--Rupert Holmes (3rd week at #1)

#1 single in the U.S.A. (Record World): Escape (The Pina Colada Song)--Rupert Holmes (3rd week at #1)

Hockey
Chicago 4 @ Montreal 3
Edmonton 3 Los Angeles 3

Bowling
Mark Roth became the first bowler to pick up a 7-10 split on television when he accomplished the feat in a win over Bill Straub in the ARC Alameda Open at Mel's Southshore Bowl in Alameda, California.



30 years ago
1990

Died on this date
Arthur Kennedy, 75. U.S. actor. Mr. Kennedy was a dependable supporting actor who usually played morally upright characters. He was nominated for an Academy Award in the supporting actor category for Champion (1949); Trial (1955); Peyton Place (1957); and Some Came Running (1958). Mr. Kennedy was nominated in the Best Actor category for one of his few starring roles, in Bright Victory (1951). He also enjoyed a fine career on Broadway, earning a Tony Award as Best Supporting or Featured Actor (Dramatic) for Death of a Salesman (1949).

War
General Colin Powell, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that with Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega in custody, American troops could be withdrawn from Panama within a few weeks.

Economics and finance
The United States Labor Department reported that the unemployment rate had held steady in December at 5.3%.

Politics and government
Many parties had declared their intention to run candidates in Romanian elections scheduled for April. Today was the deadline that had been imposed by the government for declaring such intentions.

25 years ago
1995

Hit parade
#1 single in Finland (Musiikkituottajat – IFPI Finland): Super Gut--Mo-Do (3rd week at #1)

Law
The United States House of Representatives voted 429-0 in favour of a bill requiring both houses of Congress to abide by a number of civil rights and labour statutes that applied to other Americans.

20 years ago
2000

Abominations
The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service ordered that six-year-old Elian Gonzalez be returned to his father in Cuba, stating that "U.S. and international law recognize the unique relationship between parent and child.." U.S. President Bill Clinton said that he supported the ruling. The boy had been one of the few survivors of a boat that had capsized on the way from Cuba to Florida several months earlier. Elian’s mother, who had taken him along, was one of those who died.

Politics and government
U.S. Vice President Al Gore and U.S. Senator Bill Bradley, his main challenger for the Democratic Party nomination for President of the United States in 2000, debated in Durham, New Hampshire. Both supported the right of sodomites to serve openly in the military. Mr. Gore said that he would insist that his appointees to the Joint Chiefs of Staff support his position, but later said this would not be a "litmus test."

10 years ago
2010

Died on this date
Willie Mitchell, 81. U.S. musician. Mr. Mitchell was a rhythm and blues trumpeter and bandleader who had some success as a recording artist in the 1960s and '70s, but achieved greater success as a producer with Hi Records in the 1970s, especially with singer Al Green, who had a string of major hit singles. Mr. Mitchell died of a heart attack.